I have gotten a good laugh over the name of this thread. Here’s an exercise proposal. A few weeks back, there was a lot of talk about spin-offs of “X with Chinese characteristics.” Out of curiosity, I wonder how many spin-offs there are of “one X two systems.” I know I have seen quite a few in the past, most mocking in some way the “One Country Two Systems” model/myth (take your pick).

January 26, 2006 @ 9:56 pm | Comment

is this site blocked in China?

January 26, 2006 @ 10:58 pm | Comment

More shocking than “this page cannot be displayed”?

(Actually I tried it from within the firewall. The google.com one presented me with 16,700 images, except, guess what? Only five of them were visible through the firewall. All innocuous except for one that stunned me by having slipped past the censors. Google.cn, yeah…only 4,380 sweet pictures, plus a “results not shown” notice.)

January 27, 2006 @ 12:24 am | Comment

Well, richard and LGF actually agree on something.

There is a hint of irony in criticism of Chinese censorship and then refusing to link to a website.

(Yes, I know not linking to a web site is several powers removed from Chinese censorship, which is why I say this with a wry smile instead of angry all-caps)

Enshrining free speech includes the speech of those you hate.

January 27, 2006 @ 12:59 am | Comment

Johnny, anyone who wants to find LGF can easily do so.

Free speech does NOT mean actively spreading hateful diatribes. It means allowing that sewage its own place and access to it.

January 27, 2006 @ 1:22 am | Comment

Whoa, whoa – but why should the Communist Party want to censor any images of that day? Their own official history says it was a glorious day when Patriotic Chinese in tanks defended the homeland against vicious counter-revolutionaries armed to the teeth with, um, well not with tanks, but still…

…seriously, the soldiers who did the killing on that day have been awarded medals – kind of like WW II service medals for war veterans. Something they can proudly show to their grandchildren. So again, why should any of this be censored? Isn’t that day a source of pride for the Communist Party?

January 27, 2006 @ 3:02 am | Comment

Enshrining free speech includes the speech of those you hate.

LGF has a right to say whatever it chooses. I have a right not to send my readers to their site, a true hate site. As Lisa says, if any of them wants to find it, they can, very easily.

January 27, 2006 @ 3:34 am | Comment

what is “LGF”, never heard of it. can someone spell it out and i’ll find it myself? or send me the link via email?

January 27, 2006 @ 8:38 pm | Comment

Little Green Footballs. Go there at your own risk. And don’t miss the comments.

January 27, 2006 @ 8:53 pm | Comment

I think this warrants mentioning but wouldn’t Chinese people searching for information from google be entering Chinese? Run a google image search for 天安门 in both regular google and google.cn and you get fairly similar results. The reason for the vast discrepancy in images when searching for tiananmen in English is not neccessarily because of google censorship, but rather that the term tiananmen has become cannonical in the English language for the massacre while in Chinese it has not. Google ratings are heavily influenced by site traffic and popularity, not neccessarily relevancy. Thus googles results for those searches are influenced indirectly by Chinese censorship and the differences in language, but not neccessarily political tampering by google itself.

January 28, 2006 @ 2:41 pm | Comment

“Run a google image search for Ìì°²ÃÅ in both regular google and google.cn and you get fairly similar results.”

I don’t know about that, Jing. I just tried this and on the first page of regular google I came across three photos of Falun gong protestors and one photo of protestors from 1989.
Still, by entering the Hanzi rather than the pinyin into regular google you do not get a string of thirty photos of tanks entering the square, so you do have a point. Also, I give Dalu points for not excluding two photos of Zhao Ziyang (Úw×Ïê–) with a megaphone.
This has the makings of a fun party game. Think of all the inflammatory unmentionable phrases that you can and then compare the results of regular and Chinese google.

January 28, 2006 @ 3:42 pm | Comment

It’s worth noting that “everyone else’s google” is also accessible here in China.

Google has started google.cn, but google.com is also available, it’s just not as fast or reliable. So, all of google’s content is still available here in China through google.com, but now there is a faster, more reliable, and censored alternative in google.cn.

January 28, 2006 @ 11:12 pm | Comment

Google

This is from Michelle Malkin’s site, she has a collection of these Google gems I’ve had a number of friends ask me about my thought about Google’s move to censor a number sites in order to tap into the…

January 29, 2006 @ 12:34 am | Comment